Mother's Day

Today, Rachel and I chat Mother's Day. Join us while we explore the history of Mother's Day, how Mother's Day can be a complicated holiday, and the ways we can learn to celebrate acts of mothering year round. 

Transcript

Hey, it's your friends Katrina and Rachel here with Oh Mother, the podcast where we chat all things motherhood and identity.
Today, Katrina and I are chatting about Mother's Day, the yearly holiday marked out solely for mothers, we're going to cover how Mother's Day can bring joy, all the challenges that come along with the holiday, and how we can continue to appreciate and see mothers all year round. Right? Hi.
Okay, so one of the things that we kind of wanted to touch on today is I was reading about this and thought it was quite interesting was the history of Mother's Day. So I didn't know anything about this. I was like, Oh, we're gonna talk about this on the podcast, it might be kind of cool to know where this holiday actually came from, which was surprising for me. So it's an American holiday originally. And it was started kind of as a response to the civil war in the states where basically, this woman wanted to do something that would help bring families together after you know, the devastation of the Civil War and support these hospitals that had been set up to care for all the injured soldiers. So it was originally called mother's workday.
And it was actually for volunteering, basically, that was like the precursor to Mother's Day. So it was a day for mothers to help raise money for these hospitals to care for basically their children. And that eventually morphed into Mother's Day when her daughter made it like kind of a church service that was about reverence for mothers. Mm hmm. And then it eventually became about greeting cards and flowers and brunch. And the lady who actually started Mother's Day hated that.
I think that's pretty interesting. I personally kind of agree with her. I am not I will show my bias right now. I am not a Mother's Day fan. I think that holiday about getting drugstore flowers, and a crappy Hallmark card is not something for me. But I do also recognize that there are a lot of different ways to experience Mother's Day. Yeah, so there's a lot to talk about there. I've had so many different kinds of Mother's Day experiences and how I felt about it has changed over the years from childhood, adolescence, being a young mom to now being like seven years into it. And I've experienced the good, the bad, the ugly, I've experienced where we had like relationship fights on the day of and I was feeling like incredibly grouchy, I've had the days where I felt amazing. And we got to do all the nature things I wanted to do and feeling honored. And a lot of it came down to now I've gotten to this point where it's like, hey, well, how do I want to feel on this day? What do I want to do? And as a family, what can we do together, but I remember how Mother's Day used to be a pain point for me. And my relationship with my own mother has gotten better over the years and but when I was younger, it didn't feel like something I really enjoyed celebrating that much. But now as a mother myself and enjoying my family more and like oh, this is something where it's like Yeah, I kind of want to be the disco ball of the day. And I want like everyone to like help me shine like I like put put your eyes on me flower me with like love. So I love how it can change in each year can feel different based on like how we're doing and our relationship dynamics. And I definitely want to dive into that and the reasons why you can feel so different. So I do think it is important as much as I am like maybe not the biggest of others day to recognize the work of mothering. I think it's interesting to consider, you know, Mother as a noun as a person. And then mothering is a verb as like work that is done. And it's care work, right? It's a lot of work. It's looking after people, it's doing chores, it's knowing what's in the fridge, it's picking kids up, it's making sure they're dressed and their clothes actually fit them. It's all those little unseen things that go into actually being a parent. And I think it is important that there is a time to mark out and celebrate that work. Yeah, well kind of think about, like when you have job performance reviews, and they're like, Hey, you got this bonus for doing a great job this year. And we're like, oh, thank you for validating me. I've done a lot of work for this company. I feel good about it. And you feel seen, right? So it's like as a parent, it's like, yeah, kind of feels nice when that people around us are like really acknowledging it and making like it's a monument for the year of being like, look what you've done in the last year. Look what you're doing for this entire like life like you were raising a human, and they are learning so much of who they are from you. Right? Like that is an incredible emotional workload. And it absolutely deserves honoring and some most, like celebration more than I'm a big party fan. Like, I'm big on that. But also, I wasn't always that way. There was times I was like, You know what, I'm not really feeling appreciated. And it's like, I feel like I've been kind of struggling lately, and I've made a lot of mistakes. I've been having failures, even in my motherhood department. And I'm like, I don't really feel to be as big of a deal this year. I had that a number of years ago. And also the people around me were also kind of feeling that too. But then by the end of the day, I kind of felt crappy, like so now. I feel like
Most mothers usually have that desire to feel good, right? We're like, we want people to acknowledge that we are doing a ton of stuff. Yeah. So we are literally creating the next generation that that is what mothers do. Like, yes, males are definitely a part of that. And we have to honor that. And you know, that's a whole other topic for Father's Day. But we're talking about Mom's here. Right? Well, and I think that part of it, I think we celebrate Mother's Day, and we say, Oh, we want to celebrate good mothers, you want to celebrate all the good things they do. But think we need to understand too, that you don't just have to be good to be celebrated. Like sometimes if you're, you know, just making it through the day, like that's something to celebrate, too. There's a lot of complexities around motherhood, there's a lot of different challenges that people face. And sometimes just showing up every day and making it work is also something worth celebrating. Yeah, and I think this goes into some of the burden of this is that, especially for those moms, where they might not be getting that celebration, or they might be feeling kind of crappy in their, you know, parenting department, and they're like, Why should I be celebrated, I'm not even doing that great. Like, I'm hardly making it by my mental health sucks right now. And like, that's hard. Yeah. And I totally acknowledge, and I've seen so many mothers being in a place, I felt that way in the past long time ago. And part of it is like, then there's also the expectation of putting on a smile and being like, Oh, it's my day to day my kids made me this, like burnt toast thing, and I'm happy about it, but they might silently inside, be not feeling happy. And then just putting the smile on to make the people around them feel happy about it, but you might not feeling that inside. And that is something to also be honored being like, checking in with yourself and being like, Oh, crap, like, this day is hard for me. And there's a lot of reasons why it might be hard. So I know that I have some complicated feelings around this because part of it is you want to feel seen, you want people to really appreciate you in a way that makes sense for you. Right? Like you want to, you don't just want like a generic gift, or whatever it is you want to really feel this day is about you and where you're at and appreciating you for who you are not just like as a generic mother, right? And then what can sometimes come with that is the burden of telling people what you want, how you feel, and showing people who you are, which is already kind of difficult, right? And planning comes along with that. And if you end up planning your mother's day, especially when you already have so much going on, it's like well, I just don't even want to do that.
I have definitely known moms where they got a little bit salty on Mother's Day and a little bit sharp with their tone. And I could see it building up inside them that they were unhappy that they were doing most of the chores, they were doing most of the cooking most of the cleanup that they were helping all the children go down for naps. And they're like, Well, how am I taking care of myself today? I've seen that like bubbling anger rising up in a mother. I've seen it firsthand. And I was like, Oh, she's not really enjoying her day. And she wasn't expressing like what she was wanting. But also I don't think the other people saw like the men and the older children weren't like seeing what she was wanting in that day. And they weren't cluing in like I was seeing, but I felt like I was like, I don't know how to help in this situation. It's kind of like it's their role to kind of, to do that, like so that is a challenge in itself. And it's very complex, because then you get into like family traditions. And it's like, Do you have something that you do every year for Mother's like, I know, it's so cute. I've heard these stories, like you said in movies, like where the mom wakes up and there's like a she wakes up with like a coffee and a breakfast and pretty little thing on her bed and she just gets to sit and eat. And the the dad goes out and takes care of the kids and they go play. And I like that is beautiful. And I love that idea. But I'm like, is that the reality of most moms? Yeah. Well, and I think the other part of that is also is that the reality of most moms like Is that how you're actually spending Mother's Day? Which? Maybe that is how you spend it that way? Exactly. But at the same time, I really hope that that happens for you more than once a year. Yes. If the one day that you get to like not be in charge of the kids is just Mother's Day. And but you're doing it like the entire rest of the year. For me like that's got to be hard. I mean, maybe you want to do that. I don't know. Like it's it's your life, I guess. But that is such an important part to make. And I think that's the reason why some days for some people, Mother's Day can be so challenging when they're like every other day of the year. I am doing so much more than other people in the house. And now just today I get not to like what about the other days the year? Yeah. And that can bring with very complex feelings of enjoying and not enjoying Mother's Day, because you're a little salty about it. And it really is like it's navigating. What do you want to do? How is your family want to do it? And like there's the whole like, oh, delegating tasks like you can do this, you can do this and like carrying that burden of telling everyone what to do and you're like, I just kind of want someone to take care of me. Well, yeah, it's the mental load right? I think we see that as like a buzzword on Instagram all the time where it's like I am carrying the mental load. I am doing all of that invisible planning work again. This is why I think
Mother's Day is great because we do have to find ways to appreciate the acts of mothering that people do for us. But at the same time, we should be doing that more than once here. Well, part of it is realistic expectations. Like what is the reality of what's happening? And what you want to happen? Is there a big gap there? And how big is that gap? And are those people like? Are they just going to do it without you asking? And are they going to do something that you want? Right? And like, there's like self care thrown in there? Do you want them to take care of you? Or do you want to have a couple hours by yourself? Take care of your own self? Like, oh, man, there's a lot of conversation around that about opening up to your loved ones. How do I want to feel today? What do I want to do, and it's amazing how quickly it can be derailed because I've had a couple of mother's days in the past with my previous partner, where an argument soured the rest of the day. And it kind of sat like a chip on my shoulder. And I was like, we started this morning with an argument. And now I'm feeling kind of crappy today. And now it kind of feels like you're trying to make up for it. But it doesn't feel genuine. And it's like, oh, like, we have to also acknowledge that a lot of the moms out there have broken down relationships, or the person they were with, they're either still with or they broken up, or they got back together with or now they're divorced, or they're separated, or they're widowed. Like that, in itself also changes how you feel about Mother's Day is Is there another person you can rely on a partner, husband, a spouse, who is with you, and can help you with your needs and your desires. And it can also bring back painful memories of the past that is a burden in itself to well, and I think it's interesting, what you're what we're kind of touching on here is that especially when your kids are young Mother's Day is really your partner celebrating you. Yeah, and I think it can sometimes be a little bit of a test of a relationship too. Because when you are approaching Mother's Day, it's this sort of expectation that your partner is going to do something for you and make you feel seen. And there's vulnerability in that, right, because then there's this assumption that a, you've opened up to your partner enough that they know enough about you that they can do something special for you, and that they care enough to do something special for you. And that they show up in a way that makes you feel seen. But that doesn't always happen. So this is my first Mother's Day as a mother, which is a bit of a change in a couple of ways. Because for the last however many years of my life, I've always celebrated Mother's Day for my mother. And now I'm the mother. So it's a little bit different. Also, I guess, pressures on my partner. Like we just said, it's really a holiday where they're supposed to do something for you. Yeah, so I don't know, we'll see how it feels this year. Because again, like I've never been on the receiving end of Mother's Day necessarily because I was pregnant last Mother's Day. So how are you feeling about that? Well, I don't know. I mean, I think it's it's interesting to think about the intergenerational Mother's Day, especially now, as you know, we grew up with Mother's Day for our parents, right? And for grandparents or whoever it is, how do we fit that into our version of Mother's Day? But thinking this year, I'm like, do we do we try to like incorporate everyone to do some sort of activity on Mother's Day. Just say like, this is my day. It's not for you guys. Whatever it is. grandparent. Yeah. Like I think you're kind of done with your mother role. But like, it's weird, though, because that's part of that we know we've talked about change in the last episode is like who we are changes, but also the mothers that we have above us, they are now grandmothers. So it's cool. How do we navigate this relationship change of all of us changing our mother roles? Yeah. And I think it's also the the role of mothering doesn't really stop. Right. And I think that's, that's definitely true. And it's important to recognize the way that everyone can be mothers in our lives. But how do we deal with all those sort of, I don't wanna say competing mothers who's not really competition, but different mothers, and how to make sure that we're honoring every single one of them. Well, I don't really throw the year. I mean, we even have to think about there's very complicated and complex relationships with mothering. I've known some mothers where they had their own children, those children had children and their grandmother, but then all sudden, they're still mothering. And they are even being the mother of their grandchildren. Yeah, right. Like, that's another thing that's like, Well, I'm a grandmother, but I'm also being a mother to these children. Right. So those are very interesting dynamics two, and how you feel about it. For myself, I have had the complicated kind of relationship feeling with being like, hey, like, this is my mother. But I don't really feel that close, I don't have that mothering feel. So there was times where I like celebrate, like my eldest sister, almost more than my own mother, because I felt more of that motherly connection. Now I've kind of healed it. And like this spring, I was like, you know, you can just be my sister. Now. You don't have to remind him or her. It's okay. And I was like, oh, relationship is different now. Because there's times in the past where like, I would put such an effort into like, I wrote a letter last year to a lot of the mothers around in my life and just like really thanking them for their role of a mother in my life, right.
But that's also acknowledging that for some people, they maybe didn't even have mothers that didn't even know their mothers. Yeah.
They had complicated relationships with their mothers. And I think that also helps us, it helps us to recognize that mothering is both a noun and a verb. You can be a mother in a lot of different ways and can be a mother to a lot of different people in different ways. Yeah. And also, sometimes, you know, the person who was supposed to be your mother doesn't really do a good job of filling that, like maybe in the way that you need it. Maybe they're doing their own how they feel it can be, but for you, you're like, I kind of need more than that, or something different. Yeah. So there's a lot of emotions that can come up with that, and, you know, find meaning with how to help you get through that challenge of being like, I'm feeling kind of weird about this holiday, right? I mean, there's so many different ways I've done like, you've heard of the mother wound? Yeah, yeah. So the mother rule essentially gets into is that there are feelings of unmet needs, and how you feel about your mother and then how you as a mother now are kind of feeling retriggered by that as your own role as a mother and like therapy is a really great way to get through that. But even the communication, no matter who it's with, whether you're communicating with someone else, or a friend, or even if you're trying to have that conversation with your mother, just having a very open, respectful conversation being like, Man, this is how I'm kind of feeling about mothering. Or even if it's a relationship with yourself, and you're you journaling about it, you're getting all those feelings and thoughts inside your head and taking it out, and you're putting something tangible to it. So it's not just like, the feelings aren't just stuck inside you, but you're expressing how you're feeling about it. And I know I'm particularly.
So it's interesting. I am very bad at that, like being vulnerable, being seen being open with other people. I have a tendency to like over intellectualize maybe a little bit and like, separate myself from my feelings. And I think that's part of the reason why some part of the reason why maybe I'm not the biggest fan of
working
together, you're part of it my therapy session now.
Take over. But no, I think that that's part of the reason why maybe I'm not so good at risk being on the receiving end of those celebrations, because I don't want to open up and be vulnerable and express what I want. So it makes a little bit different difficult for people to help me feel seen, it helped me feel celebrated. I feel like with this can come feelings of disappointment, feelings of disappointment is an extremely powerful, scary and like achy feeling that for some moms, the thought of a Mother's Day celebration brings fear of disappointment. Absolutely. And I think at that point, you almost go, I'd rather just do nothing, I'd rather just not have this happen at all, because then I don't have to feel disappointed. There isn't a threat of disappointment. So I lived that a number of years ago, where I was like, Well, I don't think my partner at the time is gonna know how to do it. Like, he's not really that helpful. My kids are young, so it's really up to him. And it's like, it's just more work, right. So it's like now that I've really gone through like years of therapy and focusing on my needs. And like, there's a lot of like setting boundaries and my own self care and allowing other people to support me and asking for help you're seeking support is a really big thing. Because if you're feeling triggered on Mother's Day, there is an underlying issue. You know, there's a bandaid on some kind of wound there, no matter what the wound is. There's a reason why it's there. And it deserves attention and love and healing and finding, you know, finding the resources to slow it that band aid off and put some ointment on there. Just kind of like a little a little bit. You're like I'm feeling a little sour about Mother's Day, but I don't I don't think anyone wants to feel that way on mother's No. And I think I honestly like talking about this topic right now. Like, what I'm realizing is I am still very much in that mindset of making a Mother's Day for someone else rather than it being my holiday. Right? Because like technically, I'm the mother like I'm the active duty mother now in the family. And it's interesting, like everything I've been thinking about Mother's Day is how do I make this holiday for someone else? Like how do I make sure I'm including my mother and my mother in law my aunt and all these other mothers who all have grown up children now.
I like my mindset for this holiday was very much about how do I make other people feel celebrated seen which is not a bad thing, because I think it's always good to celebrate other people. But it was very much not about myself. So I think I think it's funny that we've kind of had this conversation and that's I'm having a little bit of a realization as you're going through this Are you part of it too is like as mothers, what are we doing like 95% of the day you're taking care of other people so all sudden we're like, oh right mother's days, like I have to focus on my own self care. And I know so many moms that I've talked to in the last couple of months because I'm around a lot of moms that my work and their self care their hobbies are down the drain. They haven't picked them up yet and a lot of them are also in the first year of motherhood which is so heavy
The only end of caring for this Yeah, sharing inside of like outside of you, right? And then you're like, Oh, now it's Sunday about me. I haven't. Like, what, what am I supposed to do with that? Yeah, we're supposed to do with that, right. And that is such a valid point. And it's okay to pause, feel all of those emotions that it brings up and acknowledge it be like I'm feeling mixed feelings about this holiday. Part of me is excited, but part of me is a little uncomfortable or feeling nervous, unsure, maybe they're worried about disappointment, fear, like, and you know what, there's even some women like, I still have my mother around. But there's some women, where they really love their own mother, and they're not here anymore. Like feelings of grief. And it makes them think of their own mother. And now they're like, oh, here I am as a mother, but like, I wish I had my mom to pour down wisdom on me today. And we could spend this day together, like humanity is so complex, especially with how we relate to others. On this day, well on, like you said, there's so many complexities around Mother's Day, Mother's Day, Mother's Day, sorry, around Mother's Day and around motherhood. And like, we haven't really touched on this. And this is probably its own topic. But you know, there's issues of infertility and grief around Mother's Day, there's issues with, you know, maybe your mother wasn't the best mother that she could have been to you and you've got your own feelings around that. And there's a lot of reasons why Mother's Day might bring up a lot of complex feelings that maybe you're not the best, and maybe make it difficult for you to enjoy Mother's Day if you're a mother now. So we touched earlier on how there's different kinds of mothers and how they show up for us. And this also ties into stepmothers adoptive mothers surrogates, myself, egg donors, mother figures, or even like, where there's two men in a relationship having a child and one of them is more of the motherly type because like you said, and you'll noun or verb. Yeah, right. So there's so many different ways that motherhood goes beyond just biological ties. And that's also interesting, because before, like the history of Mother's Day, it was a very, like, this is how we celebrate Mother's Day. And now it's like, Kate, now we're at this point, we're all celebrating dog mom. Yeah, like, and I think it's so cute. And I really love just that very progressive, open way of being like, there are so many ways to be a mother, there is not just the one traditional way. And it's been like that for 1000s and 1000s of years, it's just for a long time, he was just very kind of hidden, especially in North American culture. And that is something to also be honored is like how you have a motherly experience needs to be honored in the way that you want it, it's gonna be very unique. So for me, when I have a Mother's Day, now, I don't just get to have a Mother's Day of, you know, messaging my mom or calling my mom up and sending her like a little like, envelope, little poem about her being my mom, I'm also, you know, calling up my sister who is very much a motherly figure for me, I'm also reaching out to my friends where I love how they mother, and then I'm having my own mother's day experience of my children and my partner celebrating me, and they just love everything I do. And I get a lot of appreciation. And it's throughout the year, which feels so good to have that because I didn't always have that throughout the year mother appreciation experience. And now on top of it, on top of it, I have this incredible, like surrogate mother type experience where it's like, it wasn't even my own DNA. But I have, you know, these intended parents, now, they're just parents on the other side of the world, and they say, thank you so much for being you know, that pregnant mother that helped carry our child. Like, I'm not like anti status for them. I'm definitely not the mother of all, but it's very unique to me how I experience Mother's Day, so different. So when we get into like, all these different stories of Mother Child Experiences, it is vast. So with that, you know, we have these expectations of this is how Mother's Day is and it's like, you know what, we just got to be really real with each other and being like, if you are an adoptive mom, and you have a child that has kind of two different kinds of moms when they might not know or they do know, and you are the one who's currently taking care of them. That's gonna look like a really different Mother's Day. And that's okay. And I think what we're really touching on is at the core of this idea of mothering in like the verb sense, there's care, it's like care work, if I'm taking care of someone, I'm spending my time and energy to know about their needs, and to make sure that their needs are met. Right. And I think that's really important because there's other people in our children's lives who also fill that role, right? Like, there's all those different Aloe parents that are also sort of caretakers in varying degrees for our child. Like I know for me, for example, I have a lot of health,
which is awesome. And she's got like, she's got a lot of people who fill a mothering role in her life, right? Like, for example, my sister watches her for me. Like this morning. I was like, How does she like this? Like how does she like her juice in her cup or whatever? I'm like, I don't know.
You know, there's a lot of different people who fill that caretaking role and who perform those care tasks for kids. And I think that really highlights the way that mothering can be a verb and an action and not just a role. And I think that really opens up like you said, it opens up that world of motherhood to so many other people. Yeah, there's a lot of beauty in that, you know, the diversity of it. And I feel like before that diversity of motherhood used to be a bit of a pain point, where people were like, oh, like, my child's going to school, and they don't have their mother, how do they celebrate Mother's Day? And it's like, well, if you have communication about it, and you'd be like, Hey, kid, I know you're seven years old. How do you feel about Mother's Day? What would you like to do today, it's not something to be feared for doing something different than the traditional Mother's Day type activities. Kids want to talk about it, they don't want to hide it, we used to put so much under the rug, and we'd be like, Oh, we can't talk about their mom on this day. And it's like, pretty sure most people want approximately children. I mean, as soon as you get into like, teenage years adulthood, and you know, there's a bit more like, depending on how open someone is about talking about their experience, and how they want to celebrate the day, for the most part there is that feeling of I kind of have something in my head of how I want to feel depending on my situation. And it's different than a lot of the other mothers and their mothering experience of what they're doing. So a lot of it comes down to communication. Now, I would love love, love to chat about some of the ways how we can you know, express gratitude for all these nurturing supporting roles, do you have any thoughts that come to mind for you, I love the idea of what you said about communicating and opening those lines of communication. I think that's so important for kids to see, but also for us as parents and us in that mothering role to learn to communicate a little bit better learn to express our needs and also on the not on the receiving end on the sort of on the other end, I guess, offer those lines of communication. I think that's a really great way of making people feel seen and feel heard and appreciating them and what they do like just recognizing that say like, Hey, I recognize all the work that you do. So for example, earlier you bashed like the cards and like and grocery flowers, anyone knows something my mother loves that stuff. And you know, some people do. And so like she's like that typical you get for the flower and she will appreciate it so much. Yeah. Which I think is so fun. And then there's someone we're like, near I'm like you I would love to go for a walk in the park. It's a sunny day. Let's go play by the river. My kids can spot oh my gosh, there's a corgi puppy, I want to touch it. Hey, let's go for a walk and get some vegan ice cream. Yeah, we go home, we're outside and got the barbecue going. And it's just us or now we're just listening to music. And now we're like kickboxing outside. Like, I just want to feel like something where we're all enjoying each other. Right? It's because I communicated that. And that is the biggest thing is like these kindness, these, these gestures. You know, there's you know, we've talked about the love languages in the past, I think about how there's words of affirmation. There's quality time, there's acts of service. There's gifts. That's a big one. Most people usually go to the gifts on Mother's Day. Yeah. What's the fifth one? Did I talk about physical affection? I don't think so. Okay. Right. And being like, hey, there's all these love languages? Which one? Do you want to feel today? Or do you want all of them? Or do you want them? Like, what do you want? Yeah, I feel like this is a topic we should talk about, again, because I have.
So contrary and I'm like, I'm probably
from everything. Yeah, because I find that most mothers especially will be like, Oh, I like acts of service. It's like, well, that's because you're always doing the acts of service. So
you know, that's a whole other thing. But, ya know, it is so important to meet people where they're at and say like, how do you want to be celebrated and open those lines of communication and make people feel seen for who they are? Again, that can be a lot of work if you're someone like me, who's not very good at expressing themselves. What I've learned, again, this is my therapy session therapy with Rachel.
That holding space, I think is so important because mothers often don't have time and don't have space to think about themselves and explore themselves. And people don't give them that time and space. And I think that's really at the core of what we've been talking about over the last couple of weeks is making sure that we are holding space for all of those people in our lives. So this really brings us into that it's not just a day thing. It's also a year round. We want to be feeling this appreciation not just on one day, but throughout the year. We want to have you know that space through throughout the year where we can really check in with what do I want? What do I need, and if you're having that throughout the year, when it comes to Mother's Day, it does feel that much more special to really, really get mindful on that day with it. And that's part of that support and recognition that were really craving being like Am I really feeling appreciated by my family and my partner and my kids or whatever it is your your mothering experience are they giving me these different things?
things that makes me feel valued in my role. And it's are also just about giving me it's also like, am I giving that to myself? Right? Am I acknowledging my role Am I being thankful to myself, am I filling up my cup of how I feel in my mothering role, so I can feel more satisfied. In it, it really isn't, like a, it's a kind of community around the motherhood, right. And also mothers, we do that to each other, like you said, it's like therapy with Rachel, it's like, that's great. And that's how it's supposed to be is that it's not just a one person show, it's all of us being together, and recognizing each other and communicating about it and, and really leaning into how we're feeling about it. Yeah, keeping those lines of communication open. And I think, showing that we understand how much work goes into care acts that mothers do.